Kindness - what it is and how and why it is deserved

Often people will list kindness as a quality they value as in a way it is a “given”. But sadly l do not either think or find that it is. The normalisation of taking care of number 1, is far more ubiquitous than being met or dealt with in a way that kindness will be what you might expect and more about facilitating and box ticking than caring about others.

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And yet how does it feel when someone offers you kindness and a smile and a consideration? It feels good and it makes you feel like you want to pass that on to another. Rather than someone’s monosyllabic response or sometimes downright rudeness as it goes. It feels bad and if you are having a difficult day for any reason, or time, it can make you feel like the world or life in general is a cold place where others don’t give a damn. 

Which truth would you prefer to live with? I know what l would choose.

Most religions endorse and indeed laud kindness. However l can remember many a Sunday when l had listened to sermons full of care for our humanity in the wrong Church and definitely with the wrong vicar, and then when the vicar walked around to offer the parish the peace of the Lord, he didn’t either look at you or smile, hardly what anyone there needed least of all the most vulnerable or lonely when he had the chance to be a beacon for his own advocacies, both religious and personal, and then chose to prove otherwise, and all done before you had enough time to get off your kneeler!

I left that Church and found another one.


So what makes someone kind? 

I really think it is their own heart and their own capacity to show kindness without needing to be provoked. It is more like a well inside that is perpetually full in spite of how hard life is sometimes. It is about caring for someone else.

It is not about doctrine, or obligation but about an abundance of faith and care, that lives like a quiet light ever present, ever chosen.

Not about gain, not about anything other than goodness. Taking that extra few minutes to hear someone, to listen to their story, to care and to show it.

It is called or referred to as “the milk of human kindness”. Here l would like to outline what it is and what it isn’t and how they both show up.


Unkindness

Unkindness in toxic relationships...Dealing with unkindness from people who are regularly in your life.

I cannot stress enough how damaging this is. It can start off small but before you know it you can’t even remember the you that existed before the unkindness chipped away at you.

This can be work colleagues, friends, or worse still family, or even caregivers, or GPs who are disinterested. Or receptionists who sit in places where people with possible vulnerabilities have to go. Where you have to go when you are not feeling great or maybe even unwell or scared or all of the above.

Like doctors’ surgeries, people in A&E, airline crew, schools or nurseries or customer service departments, or even the police.

When people who are in these places are unkind it can make things really feel unsafe because it shifts blame and belittles your own reality. In favour of someone who has a role that is meant to be helpful, but actually isn’t!

The more you doubt yourself the more you feel you are their version of the truth, when unkindness prevails and the empathy that kindness is built upon simply doesn’t exist until a normalisation begins and the lack of kindness you receive is internally linked to your own self-belief about who you are and what you deserve.

We might be hearing:

  • Who would choose you...
  • You aren’t who you make out to be
  • Maybe that’s why...
  • You are...

Alone, a failure, or any other random put-downs either through words or actions or both, you are low on the list and irrelevant.

These are some very unkind things to say, but they are said so that the message you will get will be that you are not worth much to either them or anyone. Their strategy is to keep you off balance and also lowered where they are in control whilst you are diminished.

What happens, what occurs internally is this feeling of a shadow that hangs over you which whispers to you that you aren’t enough, it’s pervasive and violates your hope of change, of care, of love and of being or ever becoming someone who deserves to actually be considered or loved but deserves nothing instead. This will usually be delivered alongside comments like.

You’re making something out of nothing,” or my favourite. “It was only a joke” when someone has said something absolutely disgusting or that old favourite “what are you talking about?“ complete denial of not only your reality but reality in general. No accountability.

This, and, this unkindness hurts, it pales rather than brightens, discourages rather than encourages and it is always about control. It is bullying and it is abuse.

So it doesn’t really matter where it occurs or who doles it out, it takes rather than gives often to those who might not have very much to start with.


Kindness

Kindness is felt. 

It is there in someone’s eyes or tone of voice or touch. It feels nice, it feels bright, it feels comfortable. When you come across it. when you are at the receiving end of it, it lightens your step, your being. It is warm. It gives you faith. It makes you feel like you are equal and that you belong. It feels safe. 

It makes all the difference in the world in a way that is hugely important.

  • It takes away pain 
  • It takes away loneliness 
  • It takes away fear
  • It heals 

It enhances your belief in good things and yourself by an internal narrative that builds you up not pulls you down.

So kindness, what is it and is it deserved?

It exists in good people and it comes from the heart, from their heart to yours, and if it’s not there from anyone you either hang out you have to deal with regularly or you are in a relationship with. Then please do want and get better for you and get the hell out, and find either someone else who will consider giving it to you a privilege or go somewhere else for better treatment.

Kindness is free, and if it isn’t offered or given to you it is a choice. Their choice. Don’t go blaming or doubting yourself because inside of you, you will know the truth, and your choice if you choose to carry on accepting it.

Please don’t. You are worth so much more.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Life Coach Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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London, N8
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Written by Gail Berry
Emotional and Relationship Coach
location_on London, N8
Written by Gail Berry Emotional Coach - both a therapist and an alternative medical practitioner who works with healing people’s core wounds and uses Bach Flower Remedies alongside talking and behavioural therapy to make real change and transformatio...
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